ABC World News (12/22, story 13, 0:25, Muir) reported that the NFL is “under fire” for “withholding $16 million from researchers investigating football-related head trauma.” The NFL was funding the study, which is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health, but the league was “reportedly critical of the doctor leading the project.” NFL officials are “disputing the report.”

The Washington Post (12/23, Larimer) reports on the ESPN “Outside the Lines” story, which claimed that the NFL “‘backed out’ of the planned seven-year, $16 million research project to attempt to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in living patients.” The study was originally “to have been paid for by a $30 million grant from the NFL made to the National Institutes of Health in 2012.” However, “the NIH will fund the study itself, according to a Tuesday morning news release.”

The New York Times (12/23, B9, Belson, Subscription Publication) reports that the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded the grant “as part of a long-term study of brain disease in former NFL and college football players, many of whom sustained multiple concussions on the field,” but the NFL “did not help pay for the grant.”

Related Links:

— “NFL disputes ESPN report on brain study funding; NIH says no NFL veto,” Sarah Larimar, Washington Post, December 22, 2015.

HealthDay (12/23, Norton) reports, “College students who smoke marijuana appear more likely than their peers to skip classes – which eventually leads to poorer grades and later graduation,” a study published in the September issue of the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors suggests.

Related Links:

— “Smoke Weed in College and Your Grades May Go to Pot,” Amy Norton, HealthDay, December 22, 2015.

PBS NewsHour (12/23) correspondent William Brangham sat down with National Institute on Drug Abuse toxicologist Dr. Marilyn Huestis, among others, to discuss the “rise of the drug synthetic marijuana, commonly known as Spice or K2.” In the interview, Dr. Huestis predicted that synthetic marijuana will be “the emerging face of drug abuse for the future,” adding that some of the new drugs that come out are “very potent, up to 100 times as potent as cannabis.” She is studying the chemical composition of synthetic drugs in her lab and notes the challenges of identifying the “ever-changing cocktail of chemicals.”

Related Links:

— “What’s in that synthetic drug? An unknown grab-bag of toxic chemicals,” William Brangham, PBS NewsHour, December 22, 2015.

The Washington Post (12/23, Ingraham) “Wonkblog” reports that US alcohol deaths have reached a “35-year high.” In 2014, some “30,700 Americans died from alcohol-induced causes, including alcohol poisoning and cirrhosis.” Excluded from this figure are “deaths from drunk driving, other accidents, and homicides committed under the influence of alcohol.” Were those deaths to be “included, the annual toll of deaths directly or indirectly caused by alcohol would be closer to 90,000, according to” a CDC report published Dec. 18 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

TIME (12/23, Chan) points out, “Excessive alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable death, according to the” CDC, accounting “for about 88,000 deaths each from 2006 to 2010, health officials said.”

Related Links:

— “Americans are drinking themselves to death at record rates,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post, December 22, 2015.

On the front of its Personal Journal section, the Wall Street Journal (12/22, D1, Beck, Subscription Publication) reports in “Health Journal” that drinking heavily on a chronic and long-term basis may cause brain damage and cognitive decline. To avoid those effects, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) recommends no more than 14 drinks weekly or four on one day for men and no more than seven drinks weekly or three on one day for women.

Related Links:

— “The Effects of Chronic Heavy Drinking on Brain Function Are Underdiagnosed,” Melinda Beck, WallStreet Journal, December 21, 2015.